Rapid Answer Retrieval from Clinical Practice Guidelines at the Point of Care

We describe and report preliminary results of a prototype XML-based method that facilitates the retrieval and navigation of common practice guidelines by physicians at the point of care. The method can be invoked by clicking at "infobuttons" linked to problems in an electronic medical record. Each infobutton displays a list of questions that are categorized and sorted according to the classification proposed by Ely et al. The navigation is achieved through hyperlinks from each question to relevant parts of the guideline. Preliminary results indicate high physician acceptance. A prospective evaluation is now being launched, with the expectation that it will confirm this method as an efficient option for retrieving information from reference documents.